The Stroll (Sundance Institute)

There is urgency and buoyancy in telling the tales of The Stroll. Kristen Lovell and Zackary Drucker’s documentary explores the traumatic and uniting aspects of the lives of sex workers in New York City’s Meatpacking District, from the 1970s into the early 21st century.

Lovell, a trans woman who refreshingly interviews her subjects with candor and sensitivity, notes that she wanted to tell this story before it’s gone. Perhaps having her as the interviewer makes her subjects, mostly trans women of color, more comfortable to speak about their intimate moments and stories—sticking together and protecting one another amid sometimes being assaulted and robbed by police and johns.

Their lives were not easy. Some note they were safer in the street than with their families, and that traditional jobs were not readily accessible to trans women. Lovell herself was fired from a job during transitioning and began sex work during the 1990s. Besides not being welcome by basic facets of society many take for granted (work, home, family), they also faced constant arrests. As a police siren sounds outside of a window during one of the interviews, the stately former sex worker Egyptt LaBeija says bitterly, “I hope their tires bust.”

The documentary concentrates on the rapid change New York underwent from Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s rise to power and his broken window policing policies and the lack of work after 9/11, which interlaced with the rise of the internet, when street work went online. Under the reign of the following mayor, Mike Bloomberg, the city underwent a sweeping gentrification, and many of the girls went to jail as consequence of Bloomberg’s “three strikes laws.”

The doc also voices the marginalization, disrespect, and indifference from the gay community as well, especially when detailing the murder of trans sex worker Amanda Milan in 2000. (Vintage footage of RuPaul roaming the blocks displays a flighty, glib ignorance.) The Stroll also pays tribute to important activists such as Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson, who co-founded an advocacy group for transgender rights.

There are wistful moments here, even though one of its subjects can’t even bear to look at the touristy Meatpacking District neighborhood now—the bright streets of expensive cafes, shops, glossy condos—without breaking down. Co-director and multimedia artist Zackary Drucker assembles some stunning visuals and archival footage of the former neighborhood. There’s a gritty, noirish romance to some of the black-and-white imagery, yet the documentary doesn’t idealize the past. Instead, The Stroll refuses erasure.

The Stroll will air on HBO and stream on HBO Max later this year.